Who would have thought?

Gilligan Sheppard and I strongly align on several things. In particular, their purpose of enriching lives aligns with my personal purpose of improving people’s lives through business and improving business through people. One way we thought this could materialise was by providing business improvement workshops.

We conducted an initial workshop with GS clients on ‘Developing a company’s business strategy.’ I wrote and facilitated the workshop, which ten people attended.

I have facilitated several workshops previously, but what I really wanted to do was to create an environment where people could share their stories, identify issues that others could relate to, propose answers, and, most importantly, they would take away the feeling that they were not alone.

Each part of my presentation created discussion points, and as people understood things further, there were more interactions. The dialogue was rich, and minds were opened up, which led to more creative questions and potential answers. What joy I felt seeing the expressions on people’s faces with each ‘aha!’ moment and the relief they expressed when they understood the process was not that hard.

One key takeaway they had was that developing and executing the strategies they may develop would not be easy. They would need to be committed to doing it, and it’s not that easy with small—to medium-sized businesses. However, it is possible.

Based on the success of the first workshop, we conducted three more strategic planning workshops. We engaged with Westpac, and as an initiative to increase their service offering to business clients, we did another workshop for them. This was Westpac’s commitment to improving NZ businesses in their own way.

A key point that took them some time to grasp was that the workshop was not a GS workshop but theirs. The bank’s decision to allow me to do the workshop was a great leap of faith, and it was primarily due to GS’s reputation that they agreed to let us do it. Fortunately, the results spoke for themselves: nine points out of a possible ten for both facilitation and content. Once again, the attendees connected with others and shared their experiences. As these stories were shared, I also learned more, which helped me improve my facilitation of other workshops.

But wait, there’s more.

A GS client who attended one of the first workshops, Akshay and Rashmi Gupte (shareholders in PB Traffic), asked if I would consider giving a Strategic Planning workshop to a select group of thirty people attending the Tarmac conference in July.

To further our purpose of making business in New Zealand better, this was a no-brainer. The range of guests would include major roading companies, mid-tier-sized companies, and government representatives. This will be a great challenge for a group of about 30 people, but I can only see it as a great opportunity to grow and connect people. A workshop like this has never been done before at this conference. Akshay and Rashmi are sponsoring it, and full kudos for their commitment to helping other businesses be better and offering the conference coordinators a different kind of value.

So, if that wasn’t big enough, hold on, there’s more.

After meeting with the conference coordinator, along with Akshay and Rashmi, to ensure we were aligned, the coordinator asked if I would take a speaking spot at the conference itself. They anticipate the audience will be between 100 and 150 people.

Okay, ‘so what do you want me to talk about?’ I asked. He answered, ‘the importance of employee engagement, leadership and high-performing teams.’ Well, that got the energy juices pumping, and I am in. I get to present for 45 minutes about the things that GS and I are aligned on. The plan is still to create an environment where people can share their stories. We will look to expand people’s thinking and, most importantly, inspire them to take action to BE BETTER.

Because the workshops have been effective, we have expanded the topics. I have just completed a workshop on Increasing Productivity through Employee Engagement. What a great group of people we had; boy, they started to think. They left the workshop with a better understanding of the importance and impressive benefits of having engaged employees. It would be a daunting exercise for them to execute in their businesses, but I detected a twinkle in many people’s eyes, which told me they may be looking to take up the initiative.

Enriching lives or Improving people’s lives through business and improving business through people. GS and others’ commitment to going outside of their day jobs to help NZ businesses be better is selfless. It is truly commendable, and we need more companies to support their people and potentially their clients to be better and, together, create a better NZ.

We are looking forward to seeing the fruit!